The Cardinal Mindszenty incident was a little different. He didn't actually wish to leave Hungary because he would have been leaving his post as Primate of Hungary. From what I gather, they never even attempted to move him via diplomatic car, or any other method, from the embassy grounds.

I just don't understand how you could extradite someone for questioning.

S: Are you guilty
A: No
S: Ok then, on your way!

They obviously plan a lot more than that, and the fact the UK is going so far out of it's way to help is just fucking scary. They should be able to step down legitimately now and blame Ecuador. When you factor in that web site owner who was extradited ... I don't wanna live on this planet anymore

Both the UK and Sweden are party to the European Arrest Warrant, which obliges EU nations to extradite individuals essentially purely on the say so of the other country. It has been used to extradite chicken thiefs, bike thiefs, and there was an attempt to extradite someone for an unpaid overdraft.

I've lived in Ecuador -- the US and the land of panflutes have never EVER gotten together all that well, on an economic or military level. The US treats Ecuador as a third-world country without a second thought (accurate too), and Ecuador treats the US as a big ass bully, emphasis on ass.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ecuador chose to proceed with this whole situation just as a big old FUCKYOU to the USA, since they're not dumb. They see the writing on the wall.

And we need a third world country to teach our world governments about doing the right thing. That's sad. We're supposed to be the high moral standard.

I'm starting on this theory that says Ecuador is granting political asylum to Assange to show how frustrating it is when one country finds another person/entity guilty of a crime but is unable to prosecute effectively because the other country just says, "Not my laws!"

I wouldn't be surprised if Ecuador chose to proceed with this whole situation just as a big old FUCKYOU to the USA, since they're not dumb. They see the writing on the wall.
And we need a third world country to teach our world governments about doing the right thing. That's sad. We're supposed to be the high moral standard

Uh, I'm guessing it isn't so much about doing the right thing as giving a big old "fuck you" to the US like you said.

A) does not say that the U.S. government is threatening to remove trade benefits from Ecuador over Assange, it says business leaders think it may happen;

B) Says why it might happen regardless of the Assange situation (Ecuador is the last country under the Andean Trade Preferences Act and Chevron and other companies are pressing the U.S. to not renew it)

Rafael Correa has a bit of a defiant streak. Leaders like him don't always behave as expected.

Some may call it sticking to principles, other call it being irrational, but whatever is the case, he has a 70%+ approval rating at home. Assange may hurt Ecuador diplomatically with the US/UK in the short term, but will bring Correa major public opinion points worldwide.

I don't know that Assange is worth anything to Ecuador. Public defiance of apparent 'bully-states' like the US and UK is valuable to Ecuador, or at least the current Ecuadorian administration.

Why precisely Ecuador decided to give Assange asylum will probably never be totally clear. They might genuninely have had humanitarian intentions in mind, after all the wikileaks cables didn't take any skin off Ecuador's back. Or they may have had less honorable intentions.

Whatever the reason they decided to provide him with asylum became academic the moment the UK threatened to take him out of the embassy by force. The Ecuadorian embassy in London is nothing less than Ecuadorian soil. UK military or police stepping foot on that soil uninvited is a violation of Ecuador's national sovereignty, and that's just something a national administration can't back down from.

That's just your opinion. Personally I applaud them for accepting a refugee on potential humanitarian grounds. There is very little either of us can do to prove that he isn't genuinely in danger and there is very little that Ecuador can do on that front either. But the UN convention on refugees, which they're a signatory of, fits Assange quite neatly because of that.

Sort of. He's eligible for execution if tried in the United States. He fits the legal definition of a terrorist for releasing classified state secrets. Whether or not he'd actually get the death penalty, especially considering he's a foreign national, is questionable at best.

Terrorism, in US law, is the act of using fear tactics to force the country to give into demands. Fear of civilian casualties is only one type.

They are going to allege that his intent was to hurt American interests and hold the nation hostage with the threat of releasing even more damaging information. They're going to specifically centre on the earlier leak of flaws in US army body armour. That specific case is easy to manipulate as there was no geopolitical interest in this info; they'll argue that all it did was to give US enemies the capability to better kill US soldiers.

If Assange is extradited to the US they have a very good case to get him defined as a terrorist under US law.

Assange would be tried for espionage (18 U.S.C. 794). If convicted he could face the death penalty for such a charge. The US essentially wants to treat him as a spy. Terrorists are typically put to death for murder, not for some generic charge of terrorism. It would likely be found an unconstitutional breach of the 8th amendment to put someone to death for anything other than murder or espionage.

If you can show me where exactly in US law terrorism is punishable by death then feel free. Otherwise, quit spreading misinformation.

There is no precedent or treaty which suggests the UK needs to allow safe passage, or that a car cannot be stopped, searched, and Assange removed by London police. The only such treaty is in the Americas, and the UK is not a party to it.

Most importantly, by aiding Assange in defying his bail conditions Ecuador has breached article 41.1 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and is also violating 41.3 by imposing on another international obligation (the one between the UK and SWE), so it is unclear that the UK retains any lawful obligation to respect the inviolability of the Ecuadorian mission since under the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, the UK is clearly able to deem Ecuador in breach and such a clause is inseverable from the rest of the treaty.

Its fascinating, because I think there is real legal groundwork for the UK to breach the mission.

Nevertheless, if the competent authorities of the receiving State have serious reason to believe that the bag contains something other than the correspondence, documents or articles referred to in paragraph 4 of this article, they may request that the bag be opened in their presence by an authorized representative of the sending State. If this request is refused by the authorities of the sending State, the bag shall be returned to its place of origin.

The people writing these treaties weren't idiots, and wanted to avoid just this sort of thing happening. If Ecuador wheels out an Assange-sized crate, it's not going anywhere until it's cracked open so the police can take a look in it.

(Edit: For clarity, here "Receiving State" means the state receiving the embassy, i.e. the UK, not the state receiving the package)

What on earth does this have to do with imperialism? And what on earth makes you think the British government still have imperial tendencies, the decolonisation policy of the last century, perhaps? Stop living in the past, nobody will bother with true empires for a long time to come, if ever again, at all.

Soviet Russia had Nukes. They got respect. Ecuador is rather weak military and economically speaking compared to the UK and the US.

This should be a lesson to everyone out there: If you want to be taken seriously and your rights respected by the forces controlling the only remaing superpower and its proxies you need to beef up your defense a bit.

I was originally against Iran having nukes, but after this, I can see why it's important for a country to be able to stand up for itself --- Pretty much when the countries meant to be policing the world are turning into the bullies and not honouring the rules they stand by.

That's always what I think when people bemoan the lack of education in schools on our Imperial past. Pretty hard not to make us look like cunts, and nobody really wants to tell kids their ancestors where cunts really.

This is a really interesting discussion actually, whether the British Empire was truly a force for good or evil and one that's on the A Level course that I did.

Certainly it's a lot more complicated than saying 'we acted like cunts' and being done with it. Some genuine good did come out of the existence of the Empire.

The argument I found most intriguing is the counter factual one Niall Ferguson uses. You have to remember that History does not exist in a vacuum, the British Empire came about at a time where Imperialism was happening. It wasn't just a British idea.

If Britain had not built it's Empire then someone else would have, the French would have moved further East, the Germans would have taken more of the South. Russia would have taken Afghanistan and possibly India (although India was already under the control of an Empire before ours and the Dutch wanted it originally to).

So, he argues, the standard you hold Britain to is not what we deem 'correct' now it's against the standard that Britain was competing with, was the British Empire 'better' for the countries than, say, the Russian Empire would have been? The statistics tend to point to the fact that, on average, the British Empire was slightly better than it's contemporary rivals.

Certainly, it's not a cut and dry thing and there is some degree of historical debate about this, but when you look at all the factors the British Empire probably had a net positive influence on much of the world.

What do you mean a "force for good or evil"?? Meaningless words in geopolitics for the most part. Good or bad for whom is the question. When a country makes any policy, it's going to benefit some and harm others almost every single time.

No two countries with Nuclear Weapons have ever gone to war. India and Pakistan used to go to war all the time until they had Nuclear Weapons.

John Nash's theory (from the film a beautiful mind) is a rational explanation for this - The Nash Equilibrium. This is because a war between any two such participants would lead to the use of nuclear weapons, which would result in negative payoffs for both sides.

This article goes into more detail about the benefits of nuclear weapons and the Nash Equilibrium.

If you know game theory, you'll know that in the game of chicken, the only symmetric Nash equilibrium is to play randomly, i.e. flip a coin whether you'll back down or not each time you're in a nuclear confrontation.

Also, there is a strong incentive to signal in a wasteful way that you're going to go straight. In practical terms, this means convincing the world you're a madman who doesn't care whether he's nuked or not - in an expensive way, for instance by nuking some innocent country.

Sans the innocent part, would this sort of explain the nuking of Japan at the end of WWII? eg, it wasn't strictly necessary, but it achieved the objective and demonstrated the US nuclear arsenals to the Soviets?

If it had been proven wrong we'd all be using bottlecaps as currency and drinking irradiated toilet water.

Even if you have a complete psychopath in power all it takes is one guy who doesn't want to die to stop him. If Kim Jong Il had the ability to start a nuclear war there would have been no shortage of people ready to put a bullet in the dear leaders head had he tried. Any time you have an organization that big there's always going to be somebody in the room who just doesn't feel like dying that day, or even has something to gain by preventing it. If it were a general who gave the order to stop it then he would now basically own that country and have the rest of the world at his back.

The real danger isn't a country, but small groups. You'll never turn an entire government into nuclear kamikazes, but you could convince a handful of people.

Fact of the matter is we're in an era of unprecedented peace. There hasn't been a real war amongst major powers since WW2. No country has seriously fucked with a nuclear power.

If it had been proven wrong we'd all be using bottlecaps as currency and drinking irradiated toilet water.

This sense of certainty is nauseating.

It doesn't even need to be proven wrong because it isn't a theory of human behavior. It's a stochastic strategy for games with simple, deterministic outcomes.

Just because it has the word "theory" in it doesn't mean it has some broad application.

The idea that geopolitics and the threat of nuclear war is perfectly analogous to how sociopaths play the prisoner's dilemma is retarded, and always has been.

Think about this for a minute. On more than one occasion, in both the Soviet and U.S. militaries, including during the Cuban missile crisis, the order to launch nukes was given and that order was disobeyed. Why? Oh, you know, that petty thing called morality economists regularly ignore.

Precisely. Iran doesn't want a weapon, they want a deterrent, probably because they've been threatened with nuclear destruction by an aggressive rogue state with a massive illegal nuclear arsenal, and with invasion by the global superpower.

Just to spell out the implications of this as clearly as possible: Romney and Obama's rhetoric towards Iran, about force being on the table, and the sanctions being placed on them, are causing Iran to build nuclear weapons.

this is not about nukes..this is about a time honored tradition that has been respected during wars,civil unrest and little thing called sovereignty , examine the effect this will have world wide if every country decides that this is ok "just this once".
Every country's embassy will be free game anywhere/anywhen every diplomat will have lost all protections that have been awarded to them by their countries leaders and been acknowledged by their host country.

This time all the major players want Assange gone. He is embarrassment to all of them. International Law can be ignored since USA, Russia, China etc will not protest whatever is done.

Also if UK, Sweden and USA dirty themselves with underhand actions with Assange China and Russia are ecstatic. For next few decades that will be used as their excuse whenever anything underhand they do is protested.

I read an article (can't give exact source sorry) that said that Assange and the head of the ecquadorian government had met for an interview last year, and got on quite well, hence the choice to seek asylum there now.

And this is structurally different. Assange is asking for asylum from the US while disobeying lawful orders from the UK. Its nothing like a Russian walking into the US embassy in Moscow and claiming asylum, and frankly, it wasn't always honored. The US spit back a Chinese dissident a few months ago. Ecuador broke a lot of international laws to get to this place.

If he is caught by UK authorities and USA is any smart what will happen to him is interrogation in Sweden, decision that there is not enough to press charges and he is let go.

That would "prove" he is just crazy conspiracy lunatic and that his accusations had no basis. Assange himself is not really important. Holding him accomplishes nothing. Making him look ridiculous is much more useful.

As part of the ongoing negotiations the British Government tried to make Ecuador fully aware of the relevant UK laws on this issue, one of which is the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 which allows the Government to reclaim ownership of the land owned by the embassy.

Ecuador interpreted this as a threat and reacted angrily in a public press conference against British Colonialism, but the timing (a day before the extradition decision was announced) and the fact that they took the negotiations public suggests that this might be the Ecuadorian Government playing internal politics to silence or gain the support of their own opposition through playing the ‘Colonial’ card (as Argentina sometimes does with the Falklands).

Britain hasn’t made any overt attempts to implement the law (or storm the embassy, despite yesterday’s claims on Reddit), but the CIA guy is not correct in saying this is without precedent. The law was born out of the 1984 Lybian embassy siege, where a British police woman guarding the embassy from a protest was shot in the back by an unidentified gunman within the embassy (the gunman escaped justice for her death). It has been used previously in 1988 to allow police to evict squatters in the Cambodian embassy. The British opposition party however disputes the legality of its application in the case of Assange.

Despite this the British government has no choice but to try and arrest or intercept him if he leaves the protection of the embassy; this is not due to malice or US influence, but because the highest UK court has ruled that he is to be extradited to Sweden.

It is always possible that Assange might escape (it has happened before, as with the Libyan gunman), but for now a legal impasse exists.

AFAIK, the Libyan gunman escaped because it was not known who actually took the shot, and the diplomatic mission has the right to safe passage out of the country. That doesn't apply to Assange, because diplomatic appointments have to be approved by the host nation in advance.

"British authorities are under a binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden," a spokesman for the office said. "We shall carry out that obligation. The Ecuadorean government's decision this afternoon does not change that."
"We will not allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the United Kingdom," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said at a press conference. "Nor is there any legal basis for us to do so. The United Kingdom does not recognize the principle of diplomatic asylum."

I heard it reported on BBC Radio that the UK government said they were legally able to go and get him from the embassy. They didn't say they would or even that they were considering it. I suppose it does sound like a fairly mild threat though.

Seriously, look at Megaupload, look at Wikileaks donations, look at RIAA.. you don't seriously think there is some "high and mighty black and white" premise to this? This isn't an isolated case from these governments.. who cares about Assange. It's the premise of this situation that really bothers me, that it's not so much that Assange thinks he's above the law.. it's that the governments and their representatives get away with the fact that they are.

For the record, this is Ray McGovern. It is true that Ray McGovern is renowned. It is true that he has criticised the 9/11 Commission report and spoken out in support for 9/11 truthers asking questions. (Here's Ray McGovern in his own words on that.) Does that make Ray McGovern "a renowned 9/11 truther"? I put it to this audience that riemannszeros has an agenda in smearing Mr. McGovern in this thread.

Basically, considering Assange skipped bail on an extradition order to a legitimate legal system (Sweden), his claim to asylum might not be covered under the Vienna Convention on consular rights. It's a bit more ambiguous than OP makes out.

That said, the article was really good, especially where they have the text of the Vienna Convention right in there. However, GB pulling the "we can do it anyway if we revoke your embassy's consular rights" card is pretty hideous.

The dude is a VERY qualified ex-CIA, ex whitehouse insider.... Calling him just a "9/11" truther is very disingenuous. Not all his views and opinion can be discounted just because he is a 9/11 truther.... And ya know what, if this experienced national intelligence person is a 9/11 truther, instead of instantly lambasting him as crazy, maybe you should adjust your own views on what could have possibly happened that day. Cuz honestly, this guy knows a shit ton more about the secrets of the U.S. government than you do. You have no fucking business insulting him just because you refuse to even entertain the notion that its possible that our government was involved in some way.

And the fact remains, this situation IS unprecedented. So what is your point with pointing out that he is 9/11 truther?

Then your connection is secure and there is no middle-man attack being performed.

Note that not all components of RTs website are securely encrypted, and thus some browsers will display warnings to tell you that the site may be 'untrusted' because only some of the page elements are encrypted via SSL.

Note that this is still much more secure than say your connection to any typical site or Reddit which (for most people) is not encrypted at all except for handling the login process.

We've got the USA invading foreign countries for contracts and resources, murdering foreigners, assassinating their own, the fantasy that is the "War on Terror" (sequel to the "War on Drugs"), Kim Dotcom being raided and prevented from mounting a defence, TrapWire and now cops surrounding an embassy where someone's been rightfully granted asylum. Orwell must be spinning in his grave.

The UK enacted legislation in the 80s allowing them to revoke the status of any embassy and to enter it. There is no 'violation of international law' here. You're just unaware of British law.

A violation of international law would be the UK allowing Assange safe passage to Ecuador. The UK has a legal responsibility to extradite him to Sweden. Whether London is under the thumb of Washington or not is irrelevant; they have to extradite him. This is between Ecuador, Sweden and the US. The UK has no choices to make here.

I believe the UK needs to get Assange back so badly not because of the severity of the claim, but because of the huge loss of face it would be when a high profile person you already arrested, manages to run away and escape.

It's only alleged sexual assault. Why engage in an unprecedented breach of international diplomatic protocol over a couple of crimes?

That is, the only thing ostensibly at stake here is one man's alleged crimes against two women. Surely diplomatic immunity has been used to block justice for equally reprehensible (if true) acts in the past. Why break one of the most central rules of diplomacy now, if it's not about a pressing matter of state? Unless this is part of a larger scheme, as critics suggest...

Assange is not even accused of the crime. Swedes say they want to talk with assange, and for some reason he needs to be in the country to be able to talk. The police haven't yet decided if they want to actually charge him. At the moment, he's not charged for crime. Only suspected.

Here's me wondering how long it will take to actually charge him. How come they need him in the sweden to hear him out?

It has also been pointed out multiple times that Assange has already been interviewed about the case and was deemed innocent. A senior prosecutor took up the case later, after he had left the country, and demanded a second interview.

Well, they haven't yet engaged in a serious breach of international diplomatic protocol yet. International politics involves a lot of posturing. It's quite probable the UK never had any attention of storming the embassy and never will.

The UK is fulfilling their legal obligation under treaty to Sweden, as well as European law. The reason the assault is alleged is because Assange has to be interviewed officially in Sweden before he can be officially charged. This can't happen without him being in Sweden. The only person making this whole mess so bloody difficult is Assange himself.

This may be buried under the noise, but the former British ambassador to Uzbekhistan, Craig Murray, has blogged that his sources within the Foreign office have told him that the UK government (against civil servant advice) have already decided to breach the embassy.

Not even in Cold War’s darkest days': International law scrapped in anti-Assange crusade
"Ecuador’s move to grant Julian Assange political asylum has shown the true face of the current world order, highlighting more clearly than ever the line between the American Empire and the rest of the world, former CIA officer Ray McGovern told RT "... what we see here is a playing out of the fact that there is a complete disrespect for international law. The embassy premises of all countries have heretofore been considered sacrosanct. The British Foreign Office is now saying ‘well, we may forcibly enter.’ "
"This was unheard of even during the worst days of the Cold War. If someone sought refuge in the US Embassy in Moscow or the Soviet Embassy in the United States, despite the friction, despite the enmity between those two countries, international law was always honored. This is unprecedented ... They have had ample opportunity to go to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and question Julian Assange. They said, ‘we’re not going to do that.' Now, why is that? The reason is, there is no case against Julian Assange. In my opinion, it’s all very transparent. They want to extradite him to Sweden, and then to the U.S. to suffer the same indignities, the same torture of Bradley Manning – the person who allegedly gave those documents to Julian Assange – has faced. This is a violation of the First Amendment in our country and other amendments in our Bill of Rights ..."

doesn't international law involve not raping people? and perhaps extraditing people to countries to face legitimate criminal prosecution and trial? someone hiding in an embassy going all Roman Polanski trying to avoid any prosecution for his crimes does nto deserve international sympathy he deserve a trial and potentially jail time if found guilty.

EDIT: i love wikileaks and i feel that no government or other organization should have any reason to hide things from its people... julian has done some awesome things, but hiding in an embassy about to seek political asylum rather than showing up to court is not one of them.

These Assange threads are such massive circlejerks it's upsetting. You are calling the UK, Sweden and the US out on their actions, but what about Assange? There have been various defectors from WikiLeaks who cite him as a major problem within the organization.

You mean the defectors that deleted Bank of America leaks? One who also created 'OpenLeaks' saying transparency is more important but only to selected media organisations?

The Swedish law says he can be questioned at embassy/phone/video which Sweden has done before. Ecuador offered embassy and even Julian Assange to be sent to Sweden on a promise. But Sweden refuses to promise he won't be extradited to USA and demands him to be under Swedish authorities for questioning.

Quite frankly, Sweden is screwing it up for the victims by not formally questioning him and then filing charges, if any. Swedish prosecutor's stubbornness is making more people reluctantly support JA's theory of USA extradition.

All people who left wiki i heard of criticize the intransparencies inside of wikileaks and say Assange is powerhungry/dictator inside of wikileaks. Really? They don't see how having a transparent system makes them the easiest target for any secret agency, which already tried to bring them down in several ways? This Domscheidt idiot deleted all BoA files because of that. Wrote a book and sold the TV rights to some Hollywood studio. Yeah this dude is totally not a sell out...

Wikileaks tasks are very clear. Get leaked things, spread them to news agencies and filter out endangering parts. What's the worst thing Assange could do in his position? Not leak documents he got from someone?! What's the worst that could happen if wikileaks was transparent?

The US embassy in Moscow had a building that had listening devices input within the concrete. The US had to level the building and rebuild it. The Spaso House, where the US ambassidor lives is bugged. Even when they do a sweap of the building and think they found all the devices, the following month they find more.

I don't know if you've seen the Chinese embassy in NY but that building seems purpose built to impede spying on them.

All of their windows face out at odd angles towards the Hudson River and they have some hardware on their ventilation system to prevent sound from getting out. Other aspects of the building's construction are fairly unusual.